Queued my T-25 AT into Southern Lakeville last night. A quick perusal of tanks showed no artillery.

Thought I'd do a quick check on strat so into the chat box:

"No arty. Think they'll come heavy west or mid?"

No response. Okay, no problem I'll just start west side and see how this develops. Had 1 heavy and two mediums join me. Everyone else rolled out to the East side.

Our mediums started moving up and I parked near the back with a nice firing line on the middle ridge and some potential cover. Their E-75 crested first and myself and our heavy tank put a shot in him just as a pair of their mediums showed up racing over the hill. I got one shot into each of them before they'd gotten down the hill out of my LOS to encounter our mediums at this point 3 more enemies came over the hill and I know this is purely a defensive flank as we're outgunned here. Fortunately we're holding fairly well as neither of their mediums has passed ours and so I can just shoot the targets up top. I don't suspect that we'll win this side but maybe, just maybe, we can hold it long enough.

I'm starting at this point to think "I sure hope they are winning it in the East" and looking at the minimap and scoreboard has happy news for me. Yes they are, and handily.

And then we knocked off two of them and now it's 4 on 4 in the west though our 4 are beat up a little more than them, not unexpectedly (considering the numbers and tank matchup). Then we lose one of our mediums, but answer with another of theirs and it's 3 on 3. I'm now down to about 25% health but the minimap is showing most of our eastern flank pushing into town and I know we're going to get this and I relax a bit and start incorporating a little more of the info above the minimap into my attention span. Just then the east flankers eliminate the last of their opposition and I see it says [Sadu......(rest of name omitted) killed so-and-so] and I go... Oh, I know that name, I think he's got a Global Rating of like #3 or something on the NA servers. No wonder it went so well over there!! I think he'd picked up 3 kills in that match.

I got 0 kills, but 6 damaged, and 1028 XP (natural) so I felt like I carried my part as well.

Anyway, it's just kind of a little extra fun for me to see names I recognize from the ratings or from seeing players that also post on the forums when you're in a pub match (the only kind of match I know).

LOL... have to admit, I'm a "name watcher" during PUBs myself... have run across a lot of names that I recognize from the Forums here... ARGO, SiberianExpress... know those 2 I've seen before... too many to count actually...

Heh... I'll confuse people at times because if they've posted a reply on a forum post I started I might toss out a "Hi [playername]" and they'll be like... "uh Hello, do I know you?"

I know I've actually come across LOBS_____ [ranked about #4 right now] on the enemy team now twice. And I have NO freakin idea how, but our side won both times. I'm pretty certain I'm not to credit for it either. I'm barely above average, if that.

Usually if I find another name I recognize in a pub match I stick with them and we usually end up winning. I guess we trusted that we would have each others backs. Love to steam roll a couple of heavies with two mediums. XD

The more you post on here, the more people who actually pay attention to the forums will notice you in game. So it's not much of a surprise that random people will recognize, for instance, Mow_Mow.

That also tends to happen if you manage to be one of few (two or three) left in matches, the more often you survive to the end or get some sort of Battle Hero award the more often people read your name.

Of course, having said all that, there are people like me who just read through the names all the time to see if I can find a funny one.